<p>Isn’t this whole discussion about the importance of research reflecting a very science-engineering view of the world? There’s more to a university than how well it does it science, engineering and technology.</p>
<p>fallenchemist, the UC’s consider GPA and class rank as their #1 priority, way above SAT scores and EC’s.</p>
<p>for instance, a 4.0 GPA student from a terrible school with an SAT of 1800 would stand a greater probability of being accepted to UCLA/UC Berkeley than a 3.7 GPA with SAT’s of 2200 and extremely strong EC’s from a great school. Seriously.</p>
<p>As a consequence, the top 10% figures that are reported tend to be greater than comparable colleges.</p>
<p>by the way, if you look at the Common Data Sets of many colleges, you will see that the UC’s tend to have more students that report the class ranking than do the comparable private colleges.</p>
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<p>Basically, Berkeley accepts the top 25% of applicants from any level of school, no matter how terrible or good the school or what the people’s SAT scores are (see post 34: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/939655-uc-berkeley-nyu-admissions-3.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/939655-uc-berkeley-nyu-admissions-3.html</a>.) </p>
<p>At very good high schools, where even people at the bottom of the class apply, they definitely take outside of the top 10%, so those numbers are definitely fudged. E.g. Mission San Jose has a graduating class of 473, and it had 64 enroll at Berkeley last year - [University</a> of California: StatFinder](<a href=“http://statfinder.ucop.edu/reports/schoolreports/school_uc_enrollment_report.aspx?atpCode=50970&Year=2008-09&Type=highschool]University”>http://statfinder.ucop.edu/reports/schoolreports/school_uc_enrollment_report.aspx?atpCode=50970&Year=2008-09&Type=highschool) </p>
<p>That’s at least 17 people outside the top 10% right there from one school, and actually much more, considering many of the top 10% went to other schools, or were worse overall applicants.</p>
<p>cherokeejew, could it be that Mission San Jose High School does not report class rankings?</p>
<p>if so, then its students would not be considered in the top 10% figures reported by UCB</p>
<p>Oh, I don’t doubt it - most good schools don’t rank for that very reason. I am not saiyng they are outright lying when there is data before them showing otherwise. My point is that it simply doesn’t reflect reality, and if the UCs are doing their own estimates, they are doing them self-servingly.</p>
<p>
Absolutely, pizzagirl. And a couple publics offer top academic programs in humanities and social sciences, in addition to science, engineering and technology.</p>
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<p>Umm, please show me in the Common Data Set of any campus where class rank is even considered…it…just…ain’t…true.</p>
<p>p-girl. Cal is approx 10% OOS and international, UCLA ~6%, and the rest are much, much lower.</p>
<p>JohnAdams - that’s all very nice, but those numbers are just not possible. 100%?? Really? You want to defend that? Go ahead.</p>
<p>According to USNWR, for UCs ranked in the Top 75, here is their % of OOS students:</p>
<p>2% , UC DAVIS
3% , UC SAN DIEGO
3% , UC IRVINE
3% , UC S CRUZ
4% , UC S BARBARA
6% , UCLA
7% , UC BERKELEY</p>
<p>As for the matter of how different elements of one’s college application are considered and weighted, please keep one thing uppermost in mind. At America’s most selective colleges, successful applicants need ALL of the following:
- Strong grades in college prep classes
- High difficulty of overall curriculum taken
- Good performance on standardized test scores</p>
<p>The UCs can bleat all they like about how they focus on things like GPA and class difficulty, but this is SOP at nearly all of the top colleges in America. These colleges also look at standardized test scores and, given the great universe of students nationally with strong high school GPAs and strong high school curriculums, this factor will often be an important differentiator.</p>
<p>Following is how the National Association of College Admissions Counselors weight various aspects of the college application:</p>
<p>Considerable Weight , Moderate Weight , Limited or No Weight</p>
<p>75.9% , 17.4% , 6.7% , Grades in college prep courses
61.5% , 25.3% , 13.2% , Strength of curriculum
60.4% , 27.9% , 11.7% , Standardized Test scores (SAT, ACT)
51.2% , 36.4% , 12.5% , Grades in all courses
27.9% , 30.6% , 41.5% , Essay and/or writing sample
23.1% , 38.6% , 38.3% , Class rank
21.2% , 40.7% , 38.0% , Counselor recommendation
20.8% , 31.2% , 48.1% , Student’s demonstrated interest
19.5% , 41.1% , 39.3% , Teacher recommendation
10.4% , 23.1% , 66.5% , Interview
7.6% , 37.0% , 55.4% , Extra-curricular activities
7.6% , 23.5% , 68.8% , Subject test scores (AP, IB)
6.3% , 13.4% , 80.4% , State graduation exam scores<br>
5.2% , 8.5% , 86.3% , SAT II scores<br>
2.9% , 21.5% , 75.5% , Work</p>
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<p>Hawkette, how dare you attacking the selectivity index? Isn’t enough to have reservations about the almighty PA? How dare you picking on yet another “level the playing field” available to Mr. Morse? </p>
<p>The top 10% stats are indeed quite misleading, especially for schools that have very high percentages of OOS. However, you will never see the USNews increasing the SAT scores or the admission rate. For them, the index serves its purpose … very well. Having the UC and … Penn on top of the 10%? What more could you ask?</p>
<p>xiggi,
LOL. The UCs are an obvious joke in how they play this game to maximize their ranking. Obviously the state Us generally are the biggest beneficiaries of this stat being included in the USNWR methodology. </p>
<p>But, as you suggest, U Penn ain’t much less culpable. Plus, given the numbers of private school kids coming into U Penn (especially from the Philly area), it’s a pretty well-known fact that none of these schools rank. I’m not saying that U Penn is enrolling students who don’t belong as probably many of their private school matriculates are Top 10%. But probably many also are not. </p>
<p>As for the usefulness of the Top 10% metric, only a die-hard State U partisan could miss that this selectivity measurement does a very poor job of reflecting the quality of students at various selective colleges.</p>
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</p>
<p>Not sure it’s an IS/OOS issue. In its CDS, Williams College notes that only ~30% of its matriculants submit a class rank. On the left coast, another LAC (CMC, randomly chosen), notes that 52% of its matriculants report class rank. That big dog in Cambridge says 52%, while that local school with private eating clubs in New Jersey says 30%.</p>
<p>hawkette,</p>
<p>As far as I’m concerned financial aid for OSS is the trickiest result there is. I think these top publics would clearly get a better student body with equal tuition and financial aid for the OSS. The problem is that these top publics wouldn’t really be publics anymore. A big part of a public’s job is to “Serve their State”. It is hard to justify generous financial aid and lower tuition for OSS with this purpose in mind. Should publics be ranked lower for not providing the best financial aid support for OSS?..you could write a book on the subject. I don’t think so. I can see USnews incorporating the strength of the student body(i.e. class rank & test scores) and better financial aid to OSS students will improve this, but to directly rank a public school based on its financial aid for OSS is not something I’d support. It defeats the purpose of public schools which I think play a really vital role in our country. It also distracts from the true opportunities that these top publics offer.</p>
<p>PG,</p>
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</p>
<p>Sure, of course, but many of these top publics their science and engineering is a big part of the school and they really stand out in these fields too. The education model really is different for these fields. A university can be bring millions of research dollars for engineering, but for some this doesn’t count. There is a true benefit for the undergrad student from this research that isn’t picked up by the USnews methodology. In fact, this very effective education model for engineering and sciences may hurt thier rank in usnews.</p>
<p>Suin,</p>
<p>My data is my experience working as an engineer before going back to grad school. I think the exact correlation between research rep and instructor quality is always going to be tough to define, but my entire experience working as an engineer would show me that understanding the latest research and technologies is absolutely critical for engineers to get jobs and succeed in their jobs. This may be different in other fields such as humanities.</p>
<p>jack,
I don’t disagree with any of what you post. Frankly, your points are part of what led me to conclude that privates and publics should be ranked separately. The different mission of the publics is certainly a handicap in most direct comparisons with private colleges. Should the State Us be dinged for this or is the comparison group of all national universities, public and private, just the wrong group? I think the latter.</p>
<p>Not only that, but the publics could have a much stronger student body if they focused on SAT, but that would mean excluding many poor high schools and parts of the state, and “serving the state” reqiures them to be broader and more inclusive. .</p>
<p>
This is interesting considering California’s top 4% rule -</p>
<p>“The Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC) program recognizes students’ individual accomplishments in light of the opportunities offered by their particular high schools. If you rank in the top 4 percent of students in your California high school’s graduating class as determined by UC, and your high school participates in the program, you can become UC-eligible through ELC… ELC students who complete these requirements are guaranteed a spot at one of UC’s undergraduate campuses, though not necessarily at their campus of choice.”</p>
<p>You mean less than half of California’s public schools participate in the ELC agreement, and thus not take advantage of the top 4% rule?</p>
<p>No, I meant exactly what I wrote. Less than half of California public high schools rank their own students. Yes, the UC does rank those students that apply to each campus, but if they don’t apply to UC…And yes, UC calculates top 4% for those students that sign a waiver – not all do. But after calculating top 4%, UC does not then rank the others 5-10%; it’s ELC or not. Moreover, this calculation excludes transfers in and out of the HS…And of course, any UC calculation is based solely on two years of UC-approved and UC-weighted grades, not the traditional four years that one typically finds in a class rank. Peruse the UC campus links on cc and you’ll find plenty of students who were accepted and are now failing a senior year course. Obviously, whatever rank they had, is dropping like a rock, but UC will never recalculate their ELC number.</p>
<p>My son was ELC this year. I thought you only had to sign a waiver if your child was under 18. I had to sign one, but my friend, who is the parent of twins, did not since they were 18.</p>
<p>^^sure, the 18-year-olds can sign their own waiver…</p>
<p>Oh, I see…</p>